From the Newberry Library Catalogue: Apr. 13, 1900, letter written by Enmegahbowh to Miss Johnston and the congregation of the League of Ascension Church, acknowledging gifts and outlining his work at the White Earth mission. Brief summaries of Enmegahbowh’s childhood and work at Gull Lake are followed by descriptions of the forced move to the White Earth Reservation and the harsh conditions there during the first winter; Enmegahbowh’s preaching and teaching; his visit to a Hartford, Conn., benefactor who gave the mission a frame church and hospital, and Enmegahbowh a home; and the successful solicitation of funds and completion of a stone church seating over 600. There are also references to missionary Dr. James Lloyd Breck and the Episcopalian Bishop of Minnesota, Henry Whipple.

Enmegahbowh was an Ottawa-Chippewa Indian and Protestant preacher who served first as a Methodist and later as an Episcopal clergyman among the Chippewa in Minnesota, 1839-1902. Born in Canada around 1812, Enmegahbowh was educated at a Methodist mission school in Jacksonville, Ill., and ordained as the Rev. John Johnson. Working as a Methodist missionary to the Chippewas from 1839 until 1844, when the church abandoned its mission, Enmegahbowh convinced the Episcopalians to start a mission in 1852 at Gull Lake, Minn. There he served as assistant and interpreter, was ordained a deacon, took charge of the school, and after the 1862 Dakota uprising, remained as the only missionary. In 1868, Enmegahbowh, by now a longtime friend and associate of Bishop Henry Whipple, accompanied his people to the White Earth Reservation, where the mission was re-established and where he remained until his death in 1902.